


Reparation

by hypaereon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: .........i can't explain or justify this, ALTHOUGH IT WAS COMPLIANT LIKE 3 WEEKS AGO, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, i just....................feel a lot for these two, i know i've been MIA for literal years now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 20:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14528955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypaereon/pseuds/hypaereon
Summary: 'It was possible that he would never stop being in love with her.'Or, a very emotionally constipated and simultaneously overcome Bellamy Blake tries to mend what he once had with one Clarke Griffin in the aftermath of yet another apocalypse.





	Reparation

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh, so, I'm being VERY affected by S5.  
> I guess that's redundant.

“ _You_ ,” was all she’d been able to manage as he lowered her carefully from his arms, panting and shaking though he was. Her eyes crossed from blood loss, and he felt more than heard himself yelling for Raven. They made him back away, but they couldn’t tear his hands from her ankles. He ran his thumbs over them like they were prayer beads.

It was a hot blur; Raven waving Harper over frantically and piercing her for the transfusion, Monty touching Clarke’s domed forehead in awe and also new fear, Emori holding a shouting Murphy back, and him, Bellamy, shaking against the fronts of Echo’s legs as she tried to reach down and comfort him.

Harper’s blood was slurped into Clarke’s arm like a slow river. Bellamy forced himself to breathe.

Her face was turning grey.

 _Clarke is going to die again_. Just minutes before, he’d found her, _alive_ ; but she was going to die again, and this time, he would have to watch it happen.

Harper slapped her own arm to hurry the transfusion along. Her young face was tight with intention and worry.

After almost a full minute—and Bellamy knew, he’d been counting, he’d been mindful—Clarke’s head stirred in Monty’s hands. A wisp of blood returned to her cheeks. Her fingers twitched.

And against Echo, Bellamy exhaled.

-

She woke for long enough to receive tearful, grateful hugs from them all, but once Madi insisted that her rest was imperative, she curled into her bed and didn’t wake for over half a day. Bellamy busied himself with pacing while a talkative Madi followed, curious and undeterred by his brooding.

“You don’t look like how she remembers,” Madi ventured, expertly turning heel with him and never losing stride. “Or, how she drew you and talked about you, anyway. She thought you would keep your hair short. She remembered you as more… _clean_. I think that’s the word.”

It had been an hour of this; Bellamy knew she only wanted a rise out of him. It was the only tactic which had yielded results, so far.

“Polished.”

Bellamy stopped so suddenly that he nearly tripped. Madi, in his wake, fell into him altogether.

Clarke, pale and slow, had stridden out from under a deerskin flap, leaning on a twisted walking stick.

“It means the same thing as clean, only it refers to a type of cleaning, specifically. You do it to maintain something that was already useful or valuable.”

Madi lifted herself up in one move and surged towards her. She threw her arms around Clarke’s middle with no ceremony or hesitation.

Bellamy swallowed down the desire to do the same.

“I was _terrified_ ,” Madi declared, digging her hands into her surrogate mother’s sides, not seeing her flinch. “Your friends found me, but when you weren’t there—and then when I found out you were _hurt”_ —

Clarke shushed her gently. “Peace, _yongon_. I’m safe now, and it will all be well.” She sank down to her knees, slowly and with a small wince. Once she was a head lower than Madi, she told her, “We’ve fought off nastier monsters before. I’ll keep you safe.” Clarke kissed her head. “Now go and find Emori. She’ll know how to help cook the cured meat in the shed.”

Madi nodded and reluctantly stalked off. Clarke cleared her throat and slowly straightened.

Before she was erect, Bellamy had rushed over to help.

“I’m fine,” she rasped, waving him off. Without tact or thought, he scoffed and moved to help her, anyway.

“Save it,” Bellamy said, a bit too quickly and harshly. “Now is not the time to be a hero.” For some reason, he was feeling impatient around her, like he had a decade of stories and just one minute to tell them. He took her hand and began leading her, at a small pace, to the circle of log benches which served as some kind of plaza for Madi’s village. Clarke thanked him quietly and descended into a seat, sighing with exhaustion and staring into the empty, grey campfire stain.

Bellamy sat to her right. He leaned in on his knees, again without thinking. He couldn’t help himself; he wanted to smell the nearness of her. He was still half-convinced this was a fever dream, and he was still in space, lying in a medical bed with a scalp torn open by an engine fan while the others worried over him.

He tried to give her time, but he became impatient again so quickly. His skin was running along his bones, nervous and elated. He knew there was no neat or precise way to cut into what lay between them, but he couldn’t just let it sit. He needed to hear _more_ of her. “She’s great,” he tried, nodding his head of long hair towards the tent Madi had disappeared into.

Clarke’s eyes lifted. She regarded him weakly, but gratefully. It was a look Bellamy would have traded a limb for only a week ago. “She is.” Clarke sighed, deeply. “She saved me, you know. I wouldn’t have kept my cool without her.”

Bellamy fingered the strip of fuchsia in her short hair with a half-smile. “ _Kept your cool_ , huh? Seems more like you had some kinda crisis about becoming a mother.”

She laughed in a short, startled way, shoving his hand to the side. His smile widened.

“It was…an adjustment. But not a bad one.” She shrugged, grinning. “I never really saw myself as anyone’s mother, or even mentor. Being lonely at the end of the world does strange things to you, I guess.”

Bellamy swallowed a huge smile. Clarke was at her most ‘Clarke’ when she was making light of the huge things which were thrust upon her. He had recreated memories of her doing just that, so many times, in his head.

His silence prompted her to sweep him with her eyes. They searched him carefully. “You’re so pale,” she breathed, carefully and sentimentally. “Was the Ark strange? Being back, after so long?”

His head split open. All of the dark nights, the maddening metallic halls, the tens of thousands of book pages, Echo’s panic attacks about being off the ground, the thick, green soups, the petty arguments, the desperate kisses, the regular sheer _boredom_ , came back in a flood.

“We could’ve been better to each other,” he said cautiously. “You know, since we were all we had.” Guiltily, he thought of Murphy—and, for some reason, Echo as well.

Clarke nodded slowly. “…Oh. I guess I understand.” She gripped her walking stick tighter, whitening her knuckles. She opened her mouth to say more, but a sound interrupted.

The heavy flap of the tent had shuddered again, making them both turn their heads.

Echo emerged, her full mouth low and unpleasantly surprised.

“Bellamy, I…” she stood awkwardly for a moment, shifting her weight. He rose to his feet clumsily, bidding Clarke a hushed “ _later”_ before striding to Echo and greeting her with a firm grip to the bicep. 

Echo went inside first. Bellamy managed to turn and shoot Clarke another look.

She had already turned her back to him, staring into the stained coals again.

-

 

“When they had me, _some_ of them were nice,” Madi insisted, pressing her gaze into Murphy and then Raven. “They said it was a prison, once, and not everyone on it is bad.”

“A prison?” Murphy scoffed. “So, we should trust that the—god, it could be _hundreds_ , of convicted prisoners are gonna play nice and help us unearth the bunker?”

“You were a prisoner, once,” Harper reminded him with an arched brow. Monty shot her a sideways smile.

“Madi has a point. Conviction isn’t the same as guilt,” Bellamy proffered.

“But they were imprisoned _before_ the first nuclear meltdown,” Echo supplied, her gaze determined. “It wasn’t done to keep any populations small, back then; they were judged as too dangerous for Earth altogether.” In an odd and impermissible way, Bellamy felt a small surge of pride; he had personally shown Echo the Ark’s library, fostering her interest in pre-war history and politics.

“Oh, and no one’s ever been wrongly judged before?” Madi snapped, leaping reflexively to Clarke’s side. “That’s what _they_ ”—here she gestured vaguely at the ceiling, eyes uplifted—”did to _nomon_.” She made a fist against Clarke’s shoulder, adorably protective. “And that’s what they did to you”—here she pointed to Murphy—” _you_ ”—Harper—”and even you!”—finally, Monty. Madi huffed. “Being a prisoner doesn’t mean you’re evil. Some of them were _nice to me_.”

“I know,” Clarke said gently, squeezing Madi’s arm. Bellamy ached, in a way he could not articulate, at the sight of her being so warm. She sighed as her pseudo-daughter whispered protests. “But it may not be enough that they were nice. They may not be brave enough to do the nice thing when it’s most important, and we have to save our friends in the bunker.” She stroked Madi’s cheek. “I really want my mother to meet you, _yongon_.”

Madi bit her lip; her brows twitched. Looking conflicted, she at last nodded violently. Clarke pressed a kiss to her cheek.

Their group agreed in low tones to proceed with decimating the Eligius vessel and taking their mining tools.

As he stared after Clarke, Bellamy ached again.

-

He was hiding, drinking, when Echo found him.

Even now, he couldn’t help but to appreciate her quiet greeting, her beautiful and sombre face. It looked particularly catlike when dyed with candlelight. He had forgotten that, after six years.

She sank to his side wordlessly and gestured for the bottle after a moment. He passed it, and she took a swig with such impressive ease and naturalness that he had to snort.

Echo smirked, wiping her mouth. “What? You Skaikru are all so weak, even around tasty liquor.” She stretched luxuriously, throwing him a smug look. “I was raised on fermented milk, you know.”

He made a half-serious noise of disgust, prompting her pealing laughter. It took a long time to die, but once it did, he found he had absolutely nothing light or comforting to say to her.

Intuiting his mood, Echo touched his shoulder. He shuddered.

“I know,” she said gently, leaning her chin on him. She sighed heavily. “I know.”

“You can’t,” he gasped, realising abruptly that he was on the verge of tears. Swallowing thickly, he composed himself and straightened, moving her, trying to turn away.

“Yes, I can,” she insisted, suddenly taking his chin and making him look at her.

Echo’s dark, unknowable eyes searched his. He stifled his breath. She _sneered_.

“You forget that I know _exactly_ what it means to have your entire world distilled into one person, and then to lose them, despite all of your best efforts.”

 _Roan_. He swallowed, suddenly guilty, suddenly devastated. “Echo”—

“If I could have one more day with him,” she hissed, blinking back tears, “do you think I would be here, letting you pretend that you were still the light of my life?”

He winced. He had been the one to lend her _Lolita_ , two years ago.

He summoned his voice. “Clarke”—

“Is more than just someone that you want, just as Roan was more than that to me.” Echo released him, wiping her eyes on her sleeve as she stood. “He was also my leader and my conscience, just as she is yours.”

Bellamy stretched a hand to her, weakly and instinctively. She coughed out a sob at the gesture.

“I know you won’t choose me,” she said hoarsely, backing away, “because if I were in your position, I’d choose _him_.”

-

In the morning, the plan was to fasten bombs to four pivotal points in the Eligius camp.

There were two transports on the ground, now; one, stocked to the brim with mining equipment, and the other serving as makeshift housing for the Eligius members already on the ground. He, Echo, Murphy, and Emori were responsible for deploying the devices and then leaving the detonation zones before they went off.

But that was in the morning.

Tonight, Bellamy ran a hand through his hair, pacing his cabin in only his grey trousers. His bare feet curled their toes with each step. _Three weeks back on the ground, and it’s war already._

He pinched the space between his brows. He breathed, deep and frustrated.

He needed to talk to Clarke.

The maddening thing was that, formulaically, there was nothing preventing him from going to her and insisting that they speak _, right now_. He knew where she would be, knew that she kept late hours, and by now even _she_ would know that he and Echo had ended whatever their arrangement had become.

But it still felt like a breach of some unspoken thing.

He left his cabin for a brisk walk. The biting night air agreed with his anxiety, and then he remembered that Echo had abandoned a flask of gin near the log circle. He hadn’t eaten well that day, so he reasoned that he would limit himself to only a sip or two; more than that could invite sickness and dullness tomorrow.

He settled into one of the halved logs and flicked the mouth of the flask open with a satisfying _pop_. Before he could perch it to his lips, though, he heard rustling.

Whirling to see behind himself, Bellamy spotted her: that one fidgety thinker whose insomnia truly rivalled his own.

Clarke approached him carefully. She eyed the flask.

“All right?” she asked once she was within arm’s-length.

Bellamy chuckled. “Yeah. I actually haven’t had any, yet.” Playfully wrinkling his nose, he said, “ _You_ interrupted.” He felt a quick jolt of pleasure at the familiarity of the banter; it passed between them like electricity, needfully and easily seeking a host.

Clarke laughed softly, settling beside him. Her eyes flashed across him, up-and-down. “Well, don’t let me stop you. I mean, as long as you don’t get _too_ messed up.”

Bellamy nodded. “No, I’ll be fine. Not too much. I already parsed it out in my head.”

Clarke’s eyes twinkled, like conspirators. “Well, if you only want a little…” her fingers had already begun to snake around the flask. He laughed, large and young.

“Selfish!” he teased, playfully swatting her fingers away. “What, just because you’re staying here tomorrow?”

“Hey, you’ve been up on the Ark with all the booze stores you could ever want. I’ve been”—

“ _Here_ , where you could have made your own, _if_ you’d applied yourself.” His faux-sternness instantly flattened to laughter when she showed him a look of open-mouthed offence, barely pausing before leaning to reach for his flask again. This time, he let her have it.

She took a sharp and grateful swig before tilting it down and making a face. “ _Oogh_ ,” she blurted, stretching it back towards him with an arrow-straight arm and shaking her head.

He took the flask and smiled. “Still such a wimp,” he teased, earning a half-hearted punch to the side from a still-wincing and flustered Clarke. He took a swig of his own and twisted the cap back on.

They both let themselves sigh and watch the sky, just for a second.

Wind whistled through the nearby trees. When he turned to her, Clarke was smiling at it.

“What?” he asked softly, careful not to break the spell.

She shrugged. “I know I’ve been in the valley for years now, but I’m still so grateful for…the sounds.” Clarke was gazing up, entranced. “Even though I know there can’t be more than a few dozen birds and foxes and mice, it’s such a relief to know it didn’t all end. That was the worst part of the first few months; thinking I was totally alone, without even some bugs to keep me company.”

Bellamy reflexively moved towards her, taking her hand. She met his eyes, smiling that beautiful and impish ‘Clarke Griffin’ smile.

 _I’m sorry_ , he mouthed.

She squeezed his hand and said, “It’s okay. I can’t hate you.”

Those words of cathartic, enveloping forgiveness hung in the air for a few moments, like perfect mist, replenishing and saving him. After opening and closing his mouth like a fish, Bellamy firmly and decidedly put his hand around the left side of Clarke’s throat.

She didn’t look at his arm, or at the gesture. Clarke stared back, seemingly paralysed by the intoxicating calm before an important storm. His thumb traced her from mouth to jaw; she let her lips fall open, as though in lazy desire. He leaned forward and caught them, savagely, with his teeth.

It was bruising, and territorial, and perfect.

He leaned off of his seat and pulled her from her own, pressing against her and lowering her to the dirt. They both arched their spines towards the other, desperate for friction. She keened and slipped one hand into his back pocket; the other threaded into his long hair and held him there against her.

He alternated between greedily sucking her bottom lip and moving to suck at her neck. He had spent seven or eight years pretending not to want Clarke Griffin, and now, there was no one and nothing to restrain him when it came to leaving proof of it.

She bucked her hips impatiently against him; he steadied her with a deep, filthy kiss and a palm on her thigh.

Brushing the bridge of her nose with his mouth, he said: “Come back to my cabin.”

Clarke stared, her eyes the dizzying colour of the sea. Her chest heaved; her mouth twitched.

“No,” she gasped.

Bellamy stiffened. The taste of panic began to surface behind his tongue.

“Mine,” she clarified quickly, leaning up and taking his face in her hands. She laughed against his cheek, and he gratefully surged forward to plant a kiss at her clavicle.

“Yes,” he breathed, feeling thankful again for the first time in so long. “ _Please_ , Clarke, I’m”—

The clanging sound of toppling metal disturbed and separated them; suddenly, Madi and Raven appeared from a nearby cabin. Madi was crying gently, and Raven was alert. Clarke sprang to her feet, and selfishly, Bellamy’s heart sank.

“She found a prod,” Raven said to Clarke in hushed tones. “I don’t think she knows how to treat that kind of burn. She’s panicked.”

Clarke shot Bellamy a loaded and almost mournful look. Then, she disappeared inside of Madi’s cabin with Raven and her daughter in tow.

Selfish again, he pounded his fist into the thin dirt, murmuring, ‘ _coulda finally said it_.’

-

All four of them didn’t return until after midnight. Emori was the last, and Murphy greeted her like a man reborn, shaking, yelling, begging forgiveness and swearing to do as she likes, forever. After so long on the Ark, it looked like he had forgotten just how easily he could lose her.

Clarke was now looking at Bellamy in a way that was new and impossible for him to discern. He wanted to back her into a room and decipher it, but Madi was hovering around her, Echo had been slashed through the arm by a barbed trap, Murphy most likely had a concussion, and nothing about their present climate was remotely appropriate for its two leaders to take a load-off and untangle their own emotions.

So, he reckoned, nothing new.

He knew they had to plan for retaliation and worse, but once the others had retired to either guard watch or bed, he found he had no patience left to beat around the bush. The very moment that Clarke turned to move away, he gripped her elbow and said briskly, “Seven years was already too much. _Come on_.”

She didn’t resist; just looked up at him, nodded, and let him lead her to his shack.

He sealed the door, locked it, and took a breath. He could sense her behind him, stiff and anxious.

“You said seven,” she began softly. “Not six.”

He turned and leaned against the door. “Well, you were gone for a while when we were both on the ground, too.”

Her eyebrows twitched with an unanswered question.

“Yeah; I wanted you then, too.”

Clarke sucked in a breath. She tucked her hair behind her left ear, nervously. “I…didn’t know that.”

Bellamy crossed the room, breathing into her face without touching her. “Yeah, but I think you did.” He cocked his head to the side. “I think you knew after Mount Weather.”

Clarke blinked at him, as though in slow realisation, as though just discovering her own honesty. She slowly reached to trace his jawline, hidden under his new beard. She watched her own gesture with a vague longing.

“Clarke,” he whispered, catching her by the chin and tilting it towards him. She started at the sound of her name in his mouth, and he had to swallow. Even now, her still, thoughtful gaze was enough to take the wind from his stomach.

“I know,” she said, small and helpful. “You don’t have to say it.”

He sucked his teeth and had to look away for a moment before glancing her way again. “I know,” he rasped, “but that’s exactly why I _do_.” Bellamy’s thumb wandered her neckline, slow and greedy. He choked on his own desire, just for a moment. _She’s here, and breathing, and she wanted me back. I wasn’t imagining it._

 _She_ still _wants me, even after all this time._

Impatient and feeling mad, he seized her for another deep kiss. Pulling her head down gently by her short hair and opening her mouth for him, he shivered at her quiet mewls, growing more fevered and wild as her tongue poked cautiously and tenderly against him. Bellamy backed her into the wall, yanking both of their clothes up and off in what felt like a stupor. There might be time later for gentleness, he thought, but the both of them were running too hotly for it right now. Too many things passed between them, and they flooded Bellamy’s head in a dizzying swell.

 _Wells._ He unfastened her makeshift bra. _Mount Weather._ She kicked her trousers off and jumped into the crooks of his arms, crossing her legs around his middle. _Murphy, ALIE, Lexa, the Conclave._ He snaked a hand into her hair, _Clarke’s_ hair, and pulled it to expose her throat to his teeth. _The second meltdown. The bunker. The lists._ Bellamy hoisted her higher and pressed his forehead to hers.

_Losing her. Finding her._

“It was always you,” he said breathlessly, impulsively, pressing his fingers into her hips. He was panting. “It couldn’t be anyone else. It never was.”

Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. Finally, she replied in a soft voice with a flushed face and glassy eyes: “Bell… _me too_.”

He was too weak not to kiss her. She sighed against his mouth, and he felt her fingernails dig gently and insistently into his arse.

As he poised his cock against her, he registered that this was it.

Now was the moment that he would finally be able to manifest his stupid, maddening love for Clarke Griffin, after so many years. He was about to tip into that wonderful fantasy he’d held so close for so long.

Bellamy leaned into her neck to chuckle, once, delightedly.

Then, he pushed.

Clarke’s back arched at once, pressing her breasts flush against him as she gave a high cry. Bellamy gripped her hips tighter and thrust again.

It felt better than he had ever pictured; she was muscled, eager, and the most vocal lover he’d yet had. As he rutted into her, she gasped an array of apologies and boons into his ear: ‘ _I’m so sorry. I love you. I should never have left. You feel so good. God, I’ve missed you_.’

She used her clawing hand in his arse to pose him; when he turned how she liked, she started to gasp and sigh in a new and enticing way. Bellamy had to just stare, for a moment, into her pleasured and flushing face. It was unlike any way he’d ever seen her. It was _resplendent_. It made him buck, wildly, in the hopes of keeping her there.

His thighs began to grow tired, but he was far from willing to end this. Bellamy lifted her up and threw her down onto his cot, marvelling at the breathless, gorgeous way she landed on it.

It was possible that he would never stop being in love with her.

He seized her right leg and brought it flush and vertical against his chest. She gasped, watching him with anticipation.

Bellamy breathed. He brushed his hair from his face and lazily dragged his thumb across the back of her thigh. He never looked away from her quivering sea-spray gaze.

“You don’t know how long I’ve needed this,” he whispered. “You think you might, but you don’t.” He kissed her ankle, never breaking his eyeline. “I can’t remember that much before knowing you and wanting you, anymore.”

She wriggled impatiently underneath him, her leg flailing gently. He chuckled and pulled the heat of himself flush against hers.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy said softly. “You’re right.”

In one fell move, he pushed inside of her again, gasping at her immediate cry of his name. Clarke clawed his buttocks ruthlessly, pushing him deeper, and threw her head back against his cot. His thumb and forefinger moved eagerly to the little reddened hood above where he was fucking her; circling it precisely, he had to bite his lip at the gorgeous sound she made. Thrashing rebelliously against the bed, Clarke dug her nails into his shoulders and cried out desperately in Trigedasleng.

Clarke gave as good as she got, pushing back against Bellamy’s pelvis with a wicked passion. He could feel her, clenching and unclenching herself around his cock, teasing and tormenting him. It only made him buck harder.

As he watched her face twist in on itself with pleasure and felt her cunt clamp down on him, Bellamy had to prop himself up on his arms and try to still his heart. He made himself pump into her writhing body four or five more times before he came with a jolted cry, his hair brushing her clavicle as he sunk his head into her panting breast afterwards.

After a fashion, her fingers were in his hair, and she was giggling quietly. “Better than I’d imagined,” she whispered against his temple. Her lips brushed it in a gentle kiss.

Bellamy smiled into her breast.

It was frivolous, and probably impulsive, but in that moment, it occurred to him for the first time that he would be all right with death.

She played with his long hair, idle and sated. He grinned.

“I’m sorry that it took so long,” she whispered.

He leaned up to stare at her, warm and forgiving.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really am, too.”


End file.
